On August 10, there will be a public hearing about a government plan to provide better local bus service in the Keene and Brattleboro region. The relevant buses will serve Keene; Claremont, NH; Putney, Vermont; and other towns.

The Southwest (NH) Region Planning Commission will hold the hearing at the Charlestown, NH public library at 226 Main Street from 5:30 p.m. until 7:30 p.m.

Traveling by bus or train, rather than by car, reduces global warming, suburban sprawl, acid rain, lung cancer, and other problems.

This month, the state of Vermont gave the all-volunteer run Windmill Hill Pinnacle Association $591,000 to buy land near Brattleboro. The Pinnacle is the highest and most scenic peak in Westminster, Vermont, near Brattleboro. From the Pinnacle you can see Stratton Mountain, more than 20 miles away. The Windmill Hill Pinnacle Association owns 1,662 acres in Rockingham, Athens, Brookline, and Westminster, all of which is open to the public. There is a 14 mile hiking trail and a wildlife sanctuary. Details are at www.windmillhillpinnacle.org

Brattleboro residents defeated a plan by the administration of lame duck Republican governor Jim Douglas and lieutenant-governor Brian Dubie – the Republican who wants to be elected governor in November – that would have narrowed already-narrow sidewalks in downtown Brattleboro. The goal was to make cars, trucks, and SUVs drive faster through the world-famous, historic downtown on the shore of the Connecticut river. Dubie-Douglas also wanted to cut down trees on Main Street.

Pisgah State Park, with thousands of acres, is the biggest state park in New Hampshire. It is in the town of Hinsdale, and two other towns. Hinsdale is directly across the river from Brattleboro. The following article was written by Jeffrey Scott and Marti Hobbes of the group Defenders of Pisgah. It was posted on a bulletin board at one of the entrances to the park on June 27. The only contact info provided for the group was:

P.O. Box 31
Spofford, NH 03462

More than a third of some 11,000 eligible voters showed up to vote in Greenfield on June 8. They overwhelmingly vetoed the Greenfield mayor’s and city council’s support of plans by an incinerator corporation to build in Greenfield. The company is Madera Energy Corporation (MEC).

Janet Sinclair was a leader of the campaign against the incinerator. “This is a great victory,” she said.

An MEC spokesman said his company would seek to build an incinerator in Greenfield despite the will of the people.

Motorcycle noise is a problem every summer in the Valley, said Cliff Crowley. He is working to pass laws to limit the noise. He is a member of a national group, Noise Free America www.NoiseFree.org New Hampshire is one of the worst states for motorcycle noise. Keene has more motorcycles per capita than most cities in New Hampshire, according to the group.

On May 7, members of Greenpeace went to Entergy Corporation’s annual shareholder meeting in Jackson, Mississippi. They told company officials to close Entergy's Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor in 2012. Vermont Yankee is in Vernon, Vermont. It's three miles from Massachusetts and a stone's throw from New Hampshire.

Greenpeace spokesman Jarred Cobb told the Valley Post that, “The Vermont state senate voted in February 2010 to close Vermont Yankee in March 2012. The vote was 26-4. Entergy is ignoring the wishes of Vermonters.”

More information is at www.greenpeace.org

On May 1, thousands of people marched to the Vermont statehouse. "If Vermont passes single-payer health care, I will meet with President Obama and say, 'If Vermont can do this, so can the nation,'" U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders told the marchers. In the second photo, a blind man uses a cane while he marches.

Four of the five Democrats who are running for governor, including senate president Peter Shumlin of Putney (a few miles from Brattleboro) were at the march. Vermont votes Democratic more than almost any other state.

Earlier this year, the Vermont senate voted to close the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in 2012. Yankee is a few miles from Massachusetts and a stone’s throw from New Hampshire.

“When Vermont Yankee closes in 2012, it will not be the end of the story,” said Paul Burns, director of www.vpirg.org “The reactor site will be a nuclear waste dump that will cost more than $1 billion dollars to clean up.”

The subsidiary of Entergy Corporation that owns Vermont Yankee is likely to declare bankruptcy in 2012 and stick Vermont taxpayers with the clean-up costs.

Doris “Granny D” Haddock died on March 9 at her home near Keene. She was 100 years old. In 1999 and 2000, Haddock walked from the Pacific Ocean in California to Washington, DC to call for public financing of elections at the national level. Thousands of people, including several members of Congress and former Texas Secretary of Agriculture Jim Hightower, joined Haddock for the last few miles of her walk to the U.S. capitol building.

Maine and Arizona have public financing of state elections.